All spoken here do not understand .Net enough. I worked for tagworld.com and this web project is "quite" big. Viewstate and drag'n'drops and the like are nowhere used.
.Net is NOT for web sites, it is for web projects, really big and heterogeneous, with lots of services behind.
For other please use php and the like, with "quick submit to db" approach.
Could you elaborate on what makes the tagworld.com project so "big"?
Edit: Also, I find it interesting that on a site so big (I mean MySpace, and thusly, on a site that should have a fair number of smart developers working on it), they have not changed the default IIS error message for something a little more site-specific and user friendly. To see what I mean, click the story's URL. :) Or is doing something like that deep voodoo on a robust web platform like .NET+IIS?
they didn't change it for the same reason that they didn't do nice design, IMO.
tagworld.com is really complex thing despite its simplicity from the outside. It has unique user base and handles around 1000 requests per minute. It uses around 20 web servers and 20 other servers for db, file storage, video/photo converting.
All code is written from scratch and .Net is great in maintaining the developement process. C# compiles and most errors get caught before deployment. In addition there is a buit in mechanism for validating dynamic pages, which also helps a lot. For some time we used to deploy the whole thing daily, with active users on the site.
.Net is more for the corporate world with lots of legacy code and outside apps. It just can't be done almost with any language except java.
they are relatively simple in terms of business logic. As long as you can 'shard' a problem parallel servers can solve your problem easily. As soon as that is no longer possible because of business logic constraints the real fun begins.
its not exactly quick and dirty...its rapid development, which means they eventually can get something very complex (which I'm sure facebook has in place), but if they need to start over, they can do so quickly.
.Net is NOT for web sites, it is for web projects, really big and heterogeneous, with lots of services behind.
For other please use php and the like, with "quick submit to db" approach.